From foreplay to foreknowledge

We learn from Senator Johnson’s letter to FBI Director Wray that the Department of Justice has turned over 384 pages of text messages between FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page. (We also learn that five months’ of text messages between the infamous FBI couple during the critical period culminating in the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel have disappeared.)

What do the newly disclosed text messages reveal? Strzok and Page seem to have been in the loop on then FBI Director’s forthcoming exoneration of Hillary Clinton. Fox News reports:

One exchange between Strzok and Page, dated July 1, 2016, referenced then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s decision to accept the FBI’s conclusion in the Clinton investigation. Lynch’s announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix.

“Timing looks like hell,” Strzok texted Page.

“Yeah, that is awful timing,” Page agreed. In a later message, she added: “It’s a real profile in couragw [sic], since she knows no charges will be brought.”

The Fox News report adds that four days later, then-FBI Director James Comey announced that no charges would be brought against Clinton, even though — as he put it — her actions in regard to the private server were “extremely careless.” The key fact here, however, would be the date of Hillary Clinton’s FBI interview: July 2, 2016.